UK - Royal Veterinary College, London

RVC Established 1791 Location London Principal/Dean Professor Stuart Reid BVMS, PhD, DVM, DipECVPH, FRSE, MRCVS Students 1610   Undergraduates 1215   Postgraduates 395 Website Click Here Contact Camden Campus The Royal Veterinary College Royal College Street London UK +44 (0)20 7468 5000 Hawkshead Campus Hawkshead Lane North Mymms Hatfield Hertfordshire UK +44 (0)1707 666000 Facebook page Click Here

The Royal Veterinary College is a constituent college of the University of London and one of the United Hospitals. Founded in 1791, it is the oldest and largest veterinary school in the United Kingdom. It is one of 18 independent Colleges of the federal University of London. The College’s reputation for excellence and their pioneering work in teaching, research and clinical services means they are able to innovate and keep at the forefront of theory and practice.

About Us

The foundation of The Veterinary College, London, in 1791 marked the establishment of the veterinary profession in the UK. In the racing seasons of 1769 and 1770 the racecourses of England were dominated by one horse, Eclipse. Eclipse was a sufficiently important horse to make it necessary to carry out a post mortem, but there was no veterinary school and no qualified veterinarian in the country except the Frenchman Charles Benoit Vial de St Bel. St Bel attended the corpse of the famous racehorse and subsequently published his post-mortem findings. The Veterinary College, London, was born in the parish of St Pancras in 1791, on the present-day site of The Royal Veterinary College’s Camden Town campus. On 4 January 1792, the first four students attended the College to begin a three-year course intended to cover all aspects of the veterinary art.

Education

The College provides a number of undergraduate courses, including the Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (BVetMed) as well as accelerated graduate entry BVetMed and a combined BVetMed, BSC (Hons) degree. BSc (Hons) degrees are also provided in veterinary nursing, bioveterinary sciences and veterinary pathology, and a foundation degree in veterinary nursing is also offered. The College also offers the Gateway course; a one-year preparatory course, designed to equip students with the knowledge, understanding and skills you need to join a career-building veterinary degree course. This is a widening participation programme for UK non-selective state school students whose parents have not been to university and who receive, or would be eligible for, an Education Maintenance Allowance payment. The Distance Learning department offer an attractive option for those with work, family or financial constraints, to gain a London University qualification without coming to London. In addition to these undergraduate courses, the Graduate School provides masters courses, PhD studentships and clinical training scholarships in a wide range of disciplines. The College's Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Unit is the UK's largest academic provider of educational services to the veterinary community.

Current Research

Research at the Royal Veterinary College is of international quality. The Research Assessment Exercise in 2008 ranked the RVC as England's best veterinary school, amongst institutions whose research is exclusively veterinary related. A total of 55% of their submitted academic staff were viewed as producing "world class" or "internationally excellent" research. As a self-governing college within the University of London, a unique blend of basic and clinical scientists work together in interdisciplinary teams within one research division. The College has built a very strong academic discipline in Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health with complementary research interests. All are veterinarians and they facilitate interactions between basic and clinical scientists, in many areas of their research.

The disciplines of Epidemiology, Microbiology, Pathology, Immunology and Clinical Science are drawn together in the Centre for Emerging, Endemic and Exotic Diseases (CEEED Centre), opened in 2008 and designed to facilitate multi-disciplinary research in Infectious Diseases.

Animal Welfare is fundamental to the RVC's research mission and underpins their research programmes; the establishment of an Animal Welfare Unit at the College is an important development. Understanding how animals and people move is fundamental to musuloskeletal health and diseases that result from ageing, physical activity and the environment. The Structure and Motion Laboratory has world leading facilities to study locomotion. The leaders of this Centre of Excellence are at the forefront of developing technologies to study animal movement which are used in both basic and applied research.

The RVC is unique among European Vet Schools in having a Clinical Investigation Centre, co-ordinating disciplined study of its clinical caseload through its electronic patient record system and undertaking Phase II Clinical Trials under a Home Office license. They aim to translate research into solutions for veterinary and human medicine and use their expertise and veterinary patient caseload to undertake comparative research of of both biomedical and veterinary significance.

Clinical Services

The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) is the UK’s longest-established vet school and one of the most highly regarded institutions of its kind in Europe.

The small and large animal hospitals treat over 20,000 patients per year. They pride themselves on a strong customer focus, and this, together with first-class clinical services and treatment provides a valuable service for both the general public and the profession. The RVC runs three animal hospitals and three first opinion practices all based within London and Hertfordshire. For small animals, they run the Beaumont Animals' Hospital, a first opinion hospital that is based in RVC Camden and the Queen Mother Hospital for Animals; a high quality animal referral hospital, providing state of the art clinical services in a wide range of specialities. The equine services include the Equine Practice which is a first opinion ambulatory service, serving Hertfordshire and other local areas and the Equine Referral Hospital which provides referral clinical services to equine practices and horse owners throughout the south of England. The College also has a first opinion Farm Animal Practice serving farms in the south-east, providing a 24-hour service on all aspects of farm animal health, production and welfare and also a referral Farm Animal Hospital based at the RVC Hawkshead Campus, providing full hospitalisation, diagnostic and surgical facilities for individual farm animals. The College has also established a collaboration with the Dairy Development centre called the Welsh Regional Veterinary Centre (WRVC), a farm health investigation service to vets and farmers in the south Wales region. The College laboratories offer a full professional diagnostic service used by all departments within The Royal Veterinary College and veterinary practices both in the UK and overseas.


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